Aoi Honoo was a show Mikey wanted to watch after checking out The Hero Yoshihiko since it is by the same director, Yuichi Fukuda, who also did Hentai Kamen. Although I loved Yoshihiko, I was not interested in watching Aoi Honoo until I noticed Tsuyoshi Muro as Hiroyuki Yamaga. As I have said before, I am a big fan of his work.
Not to mention, Mikey and I have this game we play where I can spot any actor from a previous show we have watched 98% of the time. In fact, I noticed a small cameo by Yoshihiko himself, Takayuki Yamada, in the last episode. By the time Jiro Sato made an appearance, I was sitting and watching each new episode with Mikey (although Sato could have been simply dicking around on set and they managed to catch some of it on camera).
The series takes place between 1980 and 1981. Moyuru Honoo (Yuya Yagira) is a college student and an aspiring manga artist. However, Hideaki Anno (Ken Yasuda) has easily proven himself to be the best creator in the class. Hiroyuki Yamaga (Tsuyoshi Muro) quickly snatches him and Takami Akai (Tomoya Nakamura) to work together in class to use their talent and become a producer so he will "never miss a meal again". This concept gives him the occasional internal manic episode.
Anno is indeed Honoo's rival but he is by no means perfect. Like most artists, he's one big oddball that his friends have to contend with. He has an obsession with Ultraman and mecha series which is the prime subject of his animation.
The difference between Anno and Honoo's passions reflect their success. Anno loves his subject matter and demonstrates it through his animation. Honoo has the desire to be a manga artist of any genre as long as he makes it big. Although it is never specifically stated in the show, therein lies his major downfall.
These names are celebrities in the manga world, but most of them go over my head I am afraid, one of the main reasons I was not initially interested in watching the show. Many of the real people portrayed in the show had cameos as smaller characters. As an actor, meeting the real person you portray must have been an honor. Behind-the-scenes clips aired during the ending credits showing who was who and featured quotes from manga celebrities, most of them humorous.
Being a writer, I feel that I should have liked the show's plot more than I did. I joked with Mikey that if the plot were about a writer, there would be more alcohol and suicidal attempts. Here is what Mikey had to say about the show as a whole. I feel like my apathy toward most of it cannot do it true justice:
After just the first episode, however, I was irrevocably hooked. The performances of the cast definitely had that Yuichi feel that I remembered from Yoshihiko; low-budget sets, deadline shoots, but you could tell everyone was having so much fun.
I also didn't know what to expect from Honoo as a character, but throughout the series I found myself constantly identifying with his struggles to express his creative side. Even his tendency to obsess over details in his favorite manga and anime that most people overlook was charming; sure he sounds crazy, but he had a point that these were little things put there for a reason, even if he sometimes overestimates their importance.
As an anime fan I enjoyed the numerous references, though unfortunately many of them were a little dated or just outside my experience. I giggled like a school girl at each Kamen Rider reference, but the super Ultraman fanboyisms from Anno often passed over my head, even though I know at least the general idea of the Ultraman franchise.
Fortunately, the references are just fun extras that you don't require intimate knowledge about to get the plot or the characters; as it is, the show tells you everything you need to know about them.
As with the director's other drama series, Blue Blazes is mostly comedy, but in this series the comedic situations are centered around very real struggles of finding the drive to create, dreaming about what success is like only to learn first-hand how harrowing the fight for it is, and finally accepting the responsibility and anxiety that comes with being recognized as an artist.
The last two episodes dramatically increased in quality. They were much better paced since everything was coming to a head. This is also the episode where Yamaga has his most prominent bout of mania.
With the penultimate's build up to the final episode, not even the foreboding loss of clients could keep me from finishing the series, and I could not have been better rewarded.
Honoo at first decides to enjoy his youth in college but there is no one around to enjoy it with, so he goes back to manga. It is a small plot point but his second wind is significant. Many creators, be they artists or writers, do not have a second wind. They go into career fields that make them miserable so they can pay the bills and become a normal contributor to society. I did the same and I failed.
This is based on real events so spoilers should not be much of a problem. I will sum it up quickly. Honoo finally gets his manga in the weekly manga anthology Shonen Sunday, but he is not as happy as he thought he would be as a published artist. Anno explains to him that now he has the responsibility and stress of being at a professional level. Then, he pulls out the issue of Shonen Sunday with Honoo's entry and asks him to sign it.
I wanted to cry. This reached me on a personal level. When I was published in my first writing anthology, my father-in-law asked for my autograph. My hands shook as I signed the inside cover. That first autograph is something truly special even if you are nothing more than a lucky creator who ended up winning a contest. That was Honoo's first success and in the end, he made it. He fulfilled his dream.
Blazing Transfer Student is Shimamoto Kazuhiko's work that ends up in the spotlight during the series. Apparently, the manga is still running. I have seen the anime which did not make it past two episodes. However, it is hilarious and I would recommend it to anyone. I would also recommend Aoi Honoo to any creator or manga enthusiast. With the growing YouTube and video community, this is especially true. It has been translated unofficially but has no American license. You can find the episodes here: http://over-ti.me/releases/blue-blazes-01/
And here is a link to everything Shimamoto Kazuhiko: http://bato.to/search?artist_name=SHIMAMOTO%20Kazuhiko
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